“The Donbas still has a good chance of being reintegrated into Ukraine. The militants are isolated, Putin may be in a pickle and Kiev has shown that it can conduct successful anti-terrorist operations. The stakes are high. If Kiev fails, the Donbas could easily become a “warlordistan.” Corruption, instability, subversion and economic collapse in the Donbas would then radiate in all directions, producing a disaster for the rest of Ukraine, for the wider region and for Russia.”

Note that this tweet is from the Ukraine Embassy to the US. The dialogue is rich. Twitter and The Internet enable that dialogue. We live in the 21st Century. We must protect what that means, every single day.

So here’s what makes me chuckle about rugby: You have these enormous, testosterone addled rugby players, smashing the crap out of each other, throwing punches at times, and generally engaging in an 80 minute maul. But when a very small referee sends them off to the sin bin or red cards them, they very meekly acquiesce and tramp off the field. Zlatan Ibrahimovic would deliver a karate kick at the least.

I love rugby. My husband played for years. There was the saying that soccer was a gentleman’s game played by ruffians and rugby was a ruffian game played by gentleman. We survived many parties at our home. Much beer was drank. Love rugby, I do have a hard time watching soccer, sorry guys. He has bad knees from his years of rugby, but he loved it.

The Obama administration has entered an unexpected, unpredictable debate over the nation’s racial progress, warning in several events last week that much work remains to be done….

…The Saturday address — which aides said was vetted by the White House — was centered more squarely on the issues that have animated Holder in the twilight of his tenure, particularly criminal-sentencing policies and voter-identification laws.

Those issues have also interested Obama, who in his second term has made a more overt effort to address the problems of urban America and the African American community more broadly…

….President Obama, from his first days in office, made it clear to intimates that he believed a legislative solution to climate change would provide a more stable, broadly accepted response than executive action. But his experience has highlighted the structural forces that make a legislative agreement so unlikely, especially in the Senate…..

….despite Republican howls of executive overreach, there’s an air of inevitability to Obama’s shift on climate, toward regulatory action centered on higher vehicle-fuel-economy standards and the upcoming EPA regulation of carbon emissions from power plants. With House Republicans voting repeatedly to block the power-plant rules, it also looks inevitable that the 2016 GOP presidential nominee will run on their repeal.

Obama’s tilt toward regulation captures a larger change. Because the Democratic electoral coalition is growing demographically but remains excessively concentrated geographically, the party now is more likely to control the White House than Congress. In a reversal, that is transforming Democrats into a party favoring strong executive action to advance its goals—and Republicans into defenders of congressional prerogatives. That dynamic is already unfolding on issues such as immigration and education. Nothing crystallizes this new pattern more than the turbulence over Obama’s efforts to confront a changing climate.

Yes, a legislative solution would be nice. So would unicorns and Noldorin Elves. PBO, I’m convinced, believes in none of these mythical creatures. Personally, I don’t want the Pacific to be at my doorstep, so whatever he has to do, I approve. Of course, retaking the House and holding and increasing the Senate would resolve many of these “structural forces”.